Fiction: Seasons of the Soul

Seasons of the Soul

For it shall attempt to change the law and the times.

“They seem to be in separate worlds, don’t they?”

“Necessitously,” I replied. The crowd about Market Square was divided into the methodical; the mechanistic; those with grace, and people whose shadows barely fell, much less lingered. “If I may ask, what’s your reference?”

“When the wife passed, and I retired, I was told to keep the hours. After the ol’ ticker went coin-op, they gave me the sundial. I noticed yours hasn’t got a seconds hand.”

“It was removed. I write songs, and some decided I wasn’t punctual, least of all prolific.”

“Well, the less you care, the more you actually achieve -don’t you think?”

I considered his philosophizing, being the son of a Parisian who eloped to paint the English weather, with a mahout re-commissioned as a sitarist. 

“Forgive me if I don’t fully process,” I said, glancing at the hand grazing the minute track, “I fear I shall be late for yet another appointment.” It was aesthetically abrupt, having formed a link between streams, one going fast, the other, very slow. Au revoir, my friend, anyhow.

“By the way, what shall we call one another?” I frowned.

“Gary to you,” quipped the old-timer.

“I’m Paco, c’est francais.”

We shook hands. I picked up my gig bag, walking briskly to the tram.

The guitar lesson was in a side auditorium of the town council building. I caught her staring at her watch. It was gold-filled but at that distance, impossible to read. I hurried down the steps, and she got up, looking my way. I took her hand and pretended to kiss it, “Enchante, mademoiselle.”

My gaze fell, and so did hers.

“I’m sorry if you don’t like the dress.” It was shimmering green, flaring all the way to her heels, off-shoulder, her skin, flecked marble, a tumble of boulders nestled in gathered silk.

“Not at all. I was comparing our times.”

“Oh this?” She laughed, “It’s the same as yours -no seconds hand.” She squeezed it to her jaw.

I smiled to myself, “You have to part your legs when you hold the guitar, and slant it upright.”

She smiled back, her lashes and lower lip dropped. She was young and I had to be careful.

Midway the span of lessons, during which I imparted all my expertise, defining the rules of music, describing each one’s peculiar beauty, I was summoned to the Bureau of Regulations for special audit.

Waiting, I heard a familiar voice. Was it my new friend?

“Gary!” I called.

“Paco, oh, my God, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been h-handed my tape!”

Everyone had tape. A single strip of it. They say it ranged anywhere from a few feet to several meters, operated over and correlated to everyone else’s by a monolithic Turing machine.

“Says here, this was where we met. Here, where I’m invited for a wedding -your wedding, Oh God, and on this end,” his fingers tugged on the strip of symbols, “Here, look...”

A life fast losing its spring. I had seen enough. “Have they removed your watch?” I offered to swipe my Kreditz across his pacemaker but Gary held me off. “I can’t take your money.” He pointed to his ear and shuddered. There it was pinned, ticking at a precise 10 beats per second. “So I’ll know when to do what.”

He fed more tape, muttering absentmindedly, “Imogen, my daughter -she’s in love with you.”

I took a mental step back, not surprised -merely dazed by the circumstances.

* * *

“Have you got your seconds, then?” She purred, setting up for the lesson.

“Why?”

I was in no hurry to reply, having arrived comfortably ahead. Things change with the granularity of what one is afforded.

“Because, if you marry me, we can both have it.”

“Then why not?” I said, as she was comely, beautiful.

“Say ‘yes’,” she drew closer. And I obliged.

“Be gentle on me,” she whispered into my ear, as our cheeks brushed, “I have my daddy’s heart.”

Once again, I saw Gary, ill, living by the hour; then diurnally; now waiting on a calendar of disjointed events unworthy of further process. In her arms, I had felt passion, swelling by the second, really they were squares on tape moved so quickly over, that nobody noticed. She spread her knees, cradling the guitar upright. And so the music lesson resumed.

...that the justification [for machines] lies in the fact that human memory [being a function of time] is necessarily limited [by it]. -Alan M. Turing